TREY TALKS TAB
JANUARY 13.10
Trey hits the road at the beginning of February for a month-long tour with Classic TAB, beginning with a special benefit show at the Jefferson Theatre in Charlottesville, VA on February 8th and continuing through February 28th.
Trey and Classic TAB features the same lineup from last fall, with the addition of horns back into the mix. A limited number of pre-sale tickets are available through Trey's online ticketing system now at http://treytickets.rlc.net . The presale ends tomorrow, Thursday, January 14th at 5:00pm ET. Tickets will go on sale to the public beginning Thursday, January 14th at 10:00am ET. For complete ticketing information, please visit http://www.trey.com
TREY ANASTASIO ON TAB
Q: Phish just wrapped up 2009 with four consecutive nights at Miami's American Airlines arena and here you are, already embarking on another tour, this time with Classic TAB
TA: I am [laughs]. One of things that we're excited about is that we're getting to play some towns that Phish or TAB hasn't been to in quite a while like Milwaukee or Kansas City. We're really looking forward to that.
Q: Is the first time TAB has toured as a septet?
TA: Yes, this is the first time we'll have seven people – it's sort of lean and mean. The group has been going since '98 and it grows and retreats in numbers. I've gone out with a three-piece, a six-piece, an eight-piece, a nine-piece, a ten-piece and an eleven-piece. I really spent a lot of time thinking about this tour. I had a lot of horn-based material and I realized that I really needed three horns to make it happen – a tenor, a trombone and a trumpet. At one point the horn section was as big as five people. But if you write economical arrangements, you can sometimes make a richer sounding chord with less people, less voices.
So this tour, it's going to be the core of the band – Ray Paczkowski, Jennifer Hartswick, Russ Lawton, Tony Markellis and Russ Remington – we've all been together for 10-12 years. And we're really excited to have Natalie Cressman, who is Jeff Cressman's 18-year-old daughter, join us. Jeff was our trombone player up until 2008. He's going out with Santana, so his daughter is our first second-generation member and she's an incredible player.
Q: Will you be debuting some new material on the tour?
TA: Yes, we'll be bringing a lot of new material to the table. This band is sort of a breeding ground for Phish material. Songs like "Bug," "Heavy Things," "Backwards Down the Number Line," "Sand," "First Tube," "Gotta Jibboo" -- all these songs started out in the TAB band and then sort of made their way to Phish. For instance, last year we did "Alaska" with TAB and it ended up being performed with Phish. So it's a process that seems to work.
Q:Will you also be playing songs from throughout your solo career?
TA:Yes, stuff like "Cayman Review" and "Push On 'Til The Day" from my first album and some songs off Shine – "Sleep Again," "Wherever You Find It" and "Sweet Dreams Melinda." There's a song called "Goodbye Head" that's on Bar 17 that I always thought could be good but we never really had time to get at it because it's pretty complicated. So we're going to work on that one. And we're including material from The Horseshoe Curve, like "Olivia" and "Burlap Sack & Pumps." The band has a pretty deep repertoire -- our master song list has at least 50 songs on it that Phish doesn't play.
Q: And rehearsals are underway?
TA: Yes, so far we've scheduled two weeks of rehearsal and that's a lot more than we've ever had, ever. We started in December with the three horn players and my friend, Don Hart, who I collaborated with on Time Turns Elastic. We spent three days at my house going through all the old charts – shoeboxes full of papers, many of them handwritten, from 10 years of horn writing. Don helped us re-voice the chords to sound richer and we finally did the work of perfecting that whole library of music. Don is also contributing some great new charts that he's been composing. The charts are now being organized into a book like swing bands used to have. That's been a dream of mine for years now because you can add to it quite easily and it allows you to proactively use your rehearsal time.
Q: TAB has quite a history. How did the band come together?
TA: Part of the reason that I moved to Burlington was because the first night I ever visited, I went out and had a great time dancing to this band called Big Joe Burrell & The Unknown Blues Band. I loved them so much. When Sue and I got married in 94', they even played at our wedding. I was a huge fan of their bass player, Tony Markellis, and I always wanted to play with him.
So when my brother-in-law was opening a club called Higher Ground in Burlington and he asked me to play a benefit concert for his opening weekend in the spring of '98, I called Tony and he suggested his favorite drummer, Russ Lawton. The three of us got together and we did a bunch of grooves that I took and wrote songs to – "First Tube," "Sand," "Gotta Jibboo," "Last Tube" and a few others. Those songs now are well known Phish songs, but that's where they started. The band, which had a couple of other players, was called the 8FT Fluorescent Tubes and we had crazy dancers on stage with actual eight-foot-long fluorescent tubes.
We went on tour as a trio in the spring of 1999. A year or two later, I started bringing the horns along. The horn section was built around Jennifer Hartswick, who plays trumpet. Jennifer had just graduated from Lyndon Institute, a high school in Vermont. She came and played a session for me and I was not only blown away by her, but quickly became very, very close friends with her.
Russ Remington, who's the tenor saxophone player, is an old friend. He was in The Giant Country Horns, so he was always out there on all those tours as well. I was also a fan of another great Burlington band, Viper House, and I had always wanted to play with Ray Paczkowski, their keyboard player. Ray joined the band around that time and we've had a real deep musical connection ever since. He's an incredible player.
2001 was a big tour – we were doing Plasma. We just kind of kept going out – 2002, 2003, 2004. Last year I scaled it back to a four-piece and we introduced some brand new songs, including "Backwards Down the Number Line," which of course ended up being the first song on the new Phish album. We played that song every night on that tour.
FEBRUARY TOUR WITH CLASSIC TAB
JANUARY 05.10
Trey hits the road in February for a month-long tour with Classic TAB, featuring the same lineup from last fall, with the addition of horns back into the mix. Russell Remington (tenor saxophone and flute) and Jen Hartswick (trumpet and vocals) once again join Russ Lawton (drums), Tony Markellis (bass) and Ray Paczkowski (keyboards). New to the group is Natalie Cressman on trombone and vocals.
A limited number of tickets for all shows will be available through a real-time ticket presale directly through Trey's online ticketing system at http://treytickets.rlc.net The presale begins tomorrow, January 6th at 10am ET and will end Thursday, January 14th at 5:00pm ET. Tickets will go on sale to the public beginning Thursday, January 14th at 10:00am ET. For complete ticketing information, please visit the Tour page.
TREY TO PERFORM WITH THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC AT CARNEGIE HALL
JULY 13.09
Trey Anastasio will join conductor Asher Fisch and the New York Philharmonic for orchestrations of classic Anastasio compositions and the New York premiere of his composition "Time Turns Elastic" at 8p.m. on Saturday, September 12, 2009 at the Carnegie Hall. Tickets go on sale on Tuesday, July 14, at 9:00 a.m. at carnegiehall.org, by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 57th Street at Seventh Avenue. The Box Office is open Monday - Thursday, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (July 1 to August 30), and beginning August 31, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday - Saturday, and 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sundays.
The evening's performance will serve as a benefit for for the Kristine Anastasio Manning Memorial Fund and the New York Philharmonic.
The program will feature classic Phish songs and solo Trey compositions, as well as the New York premiere of Time Turns Elastic, co-composed by Anastasio and long-time collaborator Don Hart. Time Turns Elastic is a groundbreaking work for vocals, electric guitar and orchestra with long, orchestral passages intertwined with epic guitar lines and vocals in the vein of such classic Trey compositions as The Divided Sky, Guyute and Fluffhead. With Trey's electric guitar at the forefront, Time Turns Elastic pushes the limits of orchestral music.
Time Turns Elastic received its world premiere in September 2008 with Orchestra Nashville, conducted by Paul Gambill, at the Ryman Auditorium. It was recently performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop. In May, the album was released on Trey's own Rubber Jungle Records.
The album is currently on sale as a digital download from iTunes for $7.99 but is also available on CD as well as pressed on audiophile-grade 180g clear vinyl. The Vinyl features the Original Acoustic Demo as a bonus track and quantities are extremely limited. The Vinyl edition is now sold-out through our online stores but limited quantities will be available in local record stores.
TIME TURNS ELASTIC IN STORES
JUNE 09.09
Fresh on the heals of Phish's digital release of Time Turns Elastic and the live debut by Phish at Fenway Park in Boston, Rubber Jungle Records has released Time Turns Elastic for vocals, guitar and orchestra composed by Trey and Don Hart. The album is currently backordered at both Phish Dry Goods and Trey's online store, but is available for download at iTunes, Amazon and in person at fine record stores nationwide.
In addition, we've uploaded a video of Trey performing the original acoustic version of the piece at his Barn Studio. To watch the video, visit the A/V Room or click here.
The piece is available on CD in Limited Edition embossed digi-package with fold out art insert (once this version is sold out, it will revert to standard digi-pack) as well as pressed on audiophile-grade 180g clear vinyl. The deluxe CD and Vinyl feature the Original Acoustic Demo as a bonus track and quantities are extremely limited. The Vinyl edition is now sold-out through our online stores but limited quantities will be available in stores.
The piece - co-written/orchestrated by Don Hart and performed by Trey and The Northwest Sinfonia - blends the intrinsic elegance of classical music with searing blues-rock guitar, resulting in an exhilarating work that engages and challenges fans of both genres.
A video of Trey recording the original acoustic demo at the Barn can be viewed below or by clicking here.
For more information and to order online, visit Trey.com
KRISTINE ANASTASIO MANNING: 1963-2009
MAY 06.09
Kristine Anastasio Manning, an environmentalist and author died April 29th in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She was 46 years old.
The cause was neuroendocrine cancer.
In her work and her life, Kristy sought to create an unspoiled place filled with the possibility and promise of peace and harmony.
Her book “The Ecology of Place” described a world in which land is consumed sparingly, cities and towns are vibrant and green, local economies thrive, and citizens work together to create places of enduring value.
After graduating from Princeton Day School in 1981 and Harvard University, Kristy discovered the place she was meant to be while working at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City. She continued her education at Duke University where she earned Masters’ degrees in Environmental Management and Public Policy.
As Director and VP for Programs at Island Press in Washington DC, she focused on finding ways to protect the oceans she so loved and discovering ways to conserve functioning ecosystems around fast developing cities and towns.
As a result of her tireless work and vision in the development of COMPASS, the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea, scientists, journalists, policy makers, and the public now have access to the latest information about the state of the oceans and ways to discover scientific solutions for the cumulative impacts of global climate change, pollution, overfishing, coastal development, and other activities that threaten our seas.
Her enthusiastic work as president of the Haw River Assembly near her home in North Carolina made it possible for neighbors and visitors to continue to experience the beauty of this clean and healthy river.
In recent years, Kristy helped create and oversee her brother Trey Anastasio’s non-profit endeavor, the Seven Below Arts Initiative- an Artist-in-Residence Program established to foster artistic development and support arts education in the state of Vermont.
For the past several years, Kristy has devoted much of her time and energy to her son Jason’s school- the Carolina Friends School in Durham, NC, discovering in that peaceful and harmonious community the satisfaction of citizens working together to create a place of enduring value.
Kristy is survived by her loving husband Michael Manning and son Jason of Chapel Hill, NC, and her mother, father, stepmother, and brother.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations in the name of Kristine Manning to your choice of the following:
The Neuroendocrine Tumor Clinic at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute. Please indicate the name Kristine Manning and that funds should be allocated to Fund # 33438.
Send to:
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute
12902 Magnolia Drive
UTC-FOUND
Tampa, FL 33612
The Carolina Friends School/Afghan Sister School Project
Carolina Friends School
4809 Friends School Road,
Durham NC 27705.
(Please include Kristy’s name and mention the Afghan Sister School on the memo line of your check.)
For more information on this project: http://alumni.cfsnc.org/?page=AfghanMSspeak
The Seven Below Arts Initiative.
For more information:
http://www.burlingtoncityarts.com/opportunities/sevenbelow_residence
To make a donation:
https://www.justgive.org/nonprofits/donate.jsp?ein=03-0354963
After the line Enter a description below of how you would like your donation to be used please indicate that monies should be allocated to the Seven Below Arts Initiative. After As a Memorial please type in Kristine Manning.